EurEau calls for clarity on the implementation of the revised Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive and stresses that the polluter-pays principle must be upheld.
The immediate priority is to await the final outcome of the legal proceedings. In parallel, we are assessing what the opinion of the Advocate General would mean for the implementability of the Directive as a whole. Clearly, wastewater operators are now faced with even more legal uncertainty.
The important point is that the Advocate General upheld the Extended Producer Responsibility in the Directive. If their opinion is confirmed in the final ruling, the question who needs to pay must be urgently clarified. The polluter-pays principle must be upheld: the costs of removing pollution should not be passed on to consumers or water service operators.